Adelie PenguinPygoscelis adeliae

Priorities for Future Research

Most flipper band studies are done on captive penguins; very few are actually done on wild free swimming birds. These studies also only study the survival rate but not what effects the band has specifically on foraging (Dugger et al 2006). In the study done by Duggar et al. (2006) they did not determine why the lengths of the foraging trips were increased. Some possible reasons given were:

- The penguin is actually spending more time diving.

- The trip to and/or from the foraging site could be taking longer than without a flipper band.

- Or the penguin could be spending more time preening after it jumps out of the water.

There are very few studies on the wintering routes taken by the Adélie penguin. And whether they take the same routes to the same wintering grounds each year is unknown (Dunn et al. 2011).